General: Officer might not have done enough to report killings

June 02, 2007

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (AP) - A Marine colonel whose men are suspected of killing 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha may not have done all he could to properly report and investigate the killings, a two-star general testified Friday. ''I think the question is did he report everything that he knew, and I have some questions about that,'' Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, the top general in charge of Marines in Iraq's Al Anbar province when the killings occurred, testified via video from the Pentagon. Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, 43, commander of the Marine battalion involved in the deaths, is charged with dereliction of duty for failing to investigate the killings and is the highest-ranking of seven Marines accused in the deadliest criminal case against U.S. troops in the Iraq war. During a preliminary hearing to decide whether Chessani should be court-martialed, investigating officer Col. Christopher Conlin asked Huck whether, in hindsight, he thought Chessani acted appropriately. Robert Muise, Chessani's attorney, said his client immediately reported the facts as he understood them up the command chain. Conlin and prosecutors asked Huck about a Haditha town council meeting Chessani attended eight days after the killings. At that session, prosecutor Lt. Col. Paul Atterbury said local residents gave Chessani written allegations that women and children were targeted inside their homes and that a group of men were ''essentially executed'' as they stood beside a car with their hands in the air. Huck said that he should have been made aware of the document but was not. The civilians were killed Nov. 19, 2005, after a roadside bomb killed a lance corporal driving a Humvee. In the aftermath, Marines went house to house looking for insurgents. The Marines have said they believed they were taking fire from the houses. They used fragmentation grenades and machine guns to clear the homes, but instead of hitting insurgents, they killed civilians.